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Polyphony (/ p ə ˈ l ɪ f ə n i / pə-LIF-ə-nee) is a type of musical texture consisting of two or more simultaneous lines of independent melody, as opposed to a musical texture with just one voice or a texture with one dominant melodic voice accompanied by chords ().
Dissonant counterpoint was originally theorized by Charles Seeger as "at first purely a school-room discipline," consisting of species counterpoint but with all the traditional rules reversed. First species counterpoint must be all dissonances, establishing "dissonance, rather than consonance, as the rule," and consonances are "resolved ...
Though ancient Chinese, Indians, Egyptians and Mesopotamians are known to have studied the mathematical principles of sound, [2] the Pythagoreans (in particular Philolaus and Archytas) [3] of ancient Greece were the first researchers known to have investigated the expression of musical scales in terms of numerical ratios, [4] particularly the ratios of small integers.
[clarification needed] The cancrizans, and often the mensuration canon, take exception to the rule that the follower must start later than the leader; that is, in a typical canon, a follower cannot come before the leader (for then the labels 'leader' and 'follower' should be reversed) or at the same time as the leader (for then two lines ...
The notion of counterpoint seeks to understand and describe the relationships between melodic lines, often in the context of a polyphonic texture of several simultaneous but independent voices. Therefore, it is sometimes seen as a type of harmonic understanding, and sometimes distinguished from harmony.
12-tone equal temperament chromatic scale on C, one full octave ascending, notated only with sharps. Play ascending and descending ⓘ. 12 equal temperament (12-ET) [a] is the musical system that divides the octave into 12 parts, all of which are equally tempered (equally spaced) on a logarithmic scale, with a ratio equal to the 12th root of 2 (≈ 1.05946).
Homophony began by appearing in sacred music, replacing polyphony and monophony as the dominant form, but spread to secular music, for which it is one of the standard forms today. Composers known for their homophonic work during the Baroque period include Claudio Monteverdi, Antonio Vivaldi, George Frideric Handel, and Johann Sebastian Bach.
Musica universalis—which had existed as a metaphysical concept since the time of the Greeks—was often taught in quadrivium, [8] and this intriguing connection between music and astronomy stimulated the imagination of Johannes Kepler as he devoted much of his time after publishing the Mysterium Cosmographicum (Mystery of the Cosmos), looking over tables and trying to fit the data to what he ...